Trump goes from firings to friendly farewells

Those leaving high-profile administration posts find themselves with new jobs

- By WILL WEISSERT AND MICHELLE L, PRICE

Diplomacy may be soft power, but in President Trump's administration, it’s also lately a soft landing.

National security advisor Mike Waltz was nominated as United Nations ambassador after he mistakenly added a journalist to a Signal chat discussing military plans. Trump tapped IRS Commissioner Billy Long to be his ambassador to Iceland after Long contradicted the administration's messaging in his less than two months in the job.

And Trump last weekend named State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce as deputy representative to the U.N. after she struggled to jell with Secretary of State Marco Rubio's close-knit team.

The new appointments canbe viewed as consolation prizes for leaving a high-profile post in the Trump administration following rocky tenures. But they alsoreflect the degree to which Trump is trying to keep his loyalists close, even if their earlier placements in the administration were ill-fitting. Breaking with the reality TV show that helped make Trump a household name, the Republican president is not telling his top appointees “You're fired!” but instead offering them another way to stay in his administration.

“It’snotlike ‘The Apprentice, ” said John Bolton, another former Trump national security advisor, who has become a Trump critic.

First term featured more firings

During his first White House tenure, Trump was new to politics, made many staffing picks based on others’ recommendations and saw heavy staff turnover. Trump has stocked his second administration with proven boosters, which has meant fewer high-profile departures.

Still, those leaving often are the subject of effusive praise and kept in Trump's political orbit, potentially preventing them from becoming critics who can criticize him on TV — something that didn’t happen to a long list of former first-term officials.